


Violet Steamroller

by NervousAsexual



Category: Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego? (Cartoon 1994)
Genre: Coming Out, F/F, First Crush, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:33:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27368854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: Oh no, she thought as she watched Carmen soar away. She's hot.
Relationships: Carmen SanDiego/Ivy
Comments: 7
Kudos: 34
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Violet Steamroller

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wolfraven80](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfraven80/gifts).



Once on a case (Ivy could never remember which one) they chased Carmen Sandiego over rooftops and cornered her at the end of the block. In Ivy's mind the roofs and the street and all that were just representations of roofs and blocks and stuff. There was only one thing that Ivy could remember clearly, and that was Carmen. She was this flash of red as she stepped up onto the edge of the building. Her eyes were bright and dark at once as she turned and caught Ivy's eye and winked. 

Then she let herself fall back over the edge.

That moment turned it from a usual case to an extremely ingrained memory. Ivy's heart seized up and for an instant it was like the veil of the universe was lifted away and she could see the endless moving parts of other people's lives, the little indications that she really had no idea what was happening in Carmen's mind. Then there was flash of red rocketing skyward. Carmen had engaged a hidden jetpack--like she always did, she was always a step ahead of everyone--and as Ivy looked up at Carmen's hair whipping around her head and the defiant smile that never left her face she had a sudden realization.

_Oh no_ , she thought as she watched Carmen soar away. _She's hot_.

For like a year after the fact Ivy had walked around, bumping into walls, making silly mistakes, and angsting at full strength. But it made so much sense. When she and Zack sabotaged the Chief's monitor and spent the weekend watching old Humphrey Bogart movies, it wasn't Bogey who was always her favorite. Sure, he was pretty cool and she very much wanted to be like him, but it was always the femme fatale who caught her eye. It was Lauren Bacall or Gene Tierney or Ingrid Bergman.

So the truth of the matter was laid bare: she was really, really gay and Carmen was really, really her type. All that was left to decide was what to do with that information.

Well, first thing was first. She was going to say exactly zip about this to Zack. After all the years she'd picked on him for crushing on every girl to get involved in one of their cases she needed to set a good example for him, show him that just because somebody was hot didn't mean you had to drool over them. They were in charge of their emotions, not the other way around.

Also if it got out he would tease her right back at a level normal siblings could only dream of, but she liked the setting-an-example explanation better.

She worried that somehow Carmen knew. And maybe it was intentional. Back in the early years Carmen used to impersonate one or the other of her own henchmen to shake ACME, so why wouldn't it be possible that she was intentionally being more attractive and trying to shake Ivy, like her name wasn't Carmen Sandiego and was actually Bea Gyling or Ari Zistable or something. And even if she wasn't Ivy was terrified that she might slip up and give herself away. Everything--the banter, the chase, the almost-catching-but-not-quite--it all seemed so obvious. She might as well be standing in the middle of VILE headquarters and screaming, "I have a massive crush on you and if you asked me to run away with you and raise goats I would have to think about it very hard before I refused."

Worst of all, she had no idea whether or not Carmen would be disgusted by it. It had been hard enough to come out to Zack and her parents, who she knew loved her more than anything, but this? It wasn't even like Carmen was a stranger she would never have to see again. She knew who Carmen was. Carmen knew who she was. She sent a card to ACME every year on her birthday, for goodness sake. Once she was out to her she was out, every single day until one of them died, more than likely. She worried and worried; Carmen certainly didn't seem like the kind of person who would shriek about gay steamrollers running down women and children, but who knew?

The whole thing was enough to make her crazy. But Ivy was not enough of a coward, or maybe too much of one, to let herself stay that way forever.

Carmen stole the entire concept of Roman numerals while Zack was out touring colleges. Ivy wasn't sure why he was touring colleges, since he'd had early acceptance into every single school he applied to, but she wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. She went on her own, following clues, crossing the globe, and when, at the Great Wall of China, Carmen went to toss her one last clue she threw one of her own back.

Both of them stopped to read the clues. Carmen's was something predictable--a little wooden elephant that fit in the palm of Ivy's hand and held a piece of paper that said something about 'putting down roots.' Ivy's was a series of six aluminum rings tied up with the stem of a violet.

"That's all you got?" Ivy called up to her. "You're losing your touch. Indian elephants? Roots? It's the Gommateshwara statue in Karnataka. Why don't you give up while you're ahead?"

Carmen chuckled, a low, smooth laugh that made Ivy have to fight twice as hard not to blush. "Ahead, am I? Perhaps not." She held up Ivy's clue. "I must admit I'm a little baffled."

Now or never, Ivy told herself. "They're freedom rings. They used to sell them to raise money at the San Francisco Freedom Day parade. And violets are..." She swallowed hard. Just like she'd practiced. Like Carmen wasn't even there. "Lesbians and bisexual women used to wear them. As, like, a solidarity thing?"

She'd goofed it up. Of course she did. But Carmen didn't jet off. She just stood there on the wall, looking down at Ivy with something like curiosity in her eyes.

In for a penny, in for a pound. "I'm GAY."

"I see." Carmen nodded. "Congratulations."

"You're PRETTY."

For the first time in the decade Ivy had known her Carmen seemed to freeze.

"I'm SORRY. This is AWKWARD. I'm going to KARNATAKA now." She turned to book it back to the nearest C5 tunnel, but a roar of an engine followed her and she looked up to see Carmen's air skimmer hovering in mid-air.

"I apologize," Carmen said. "But I require clarification. You are coming on to me in a lesbian manner?"

Ivy wished that the C5 tunnel would open up directly beneath her. That or a sinkhole.

"You are certainly full of surprises." Carmen looked at her thoughtfully for a long moment. "You know, we are both headed to the same place, it seems. Would you like a lift to Karnataka?"

Ivy shook her head. She must have heard that wrong.

"Very well. But let's follow up on this later, shall we?"

"No!" Ivy said. "I mean... a lift would be great."

Carmen smiled that slightly-mysterious smile and held out a hand. Ivy took it in hers, and then she climbed up onto the air skimmer.

"You may want to hold on," Carmen told her.

Indeed she did, she thought, just before the air skimmer shot forward. She wrapped her arms around Carmen and held on tight. Indeed she did.


End file.
